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Samsung has denied its plans to drop support for the Symbian platform, proving only that the Korean company is getting better at western politics.

The anti-Symbian statements made by a Samsung VP, which we relayed on Wednesday, aren't exactly denied by the manufacturer, but the company would like everyone to know that it's prepared to do whatever it takes to get customers - supporting any OS under the sun.

"Samsung is an initial member of Symbian Foundation and continues to cooperate with Symbian Foundation. At the same time, Samsung supports various existing open operating systems including Symbian, Linux, Android, and Windows Mobile."

Basically it's saying that the company will make whatever the customers - currently the network operators - ask for; which has always been true. If you went to South Korea and ordered half a million handsets running AmigaOS then Samsung would make them for you, smiling as they did so, but that's not the same thing as endorsing the platform.

Samsung is increasingly selling to end customers, rather than network operators, which means making its own decisions about which OS and UI and features to support, rather than working from a list supplied by the operator.

In a previous life your correspondent attended meetings with Samsung where every question about the company's position on a feature or capability, was greeted with the same question returned. Samsung wasn't prepared to commit to anything without checking our opinion first, in order to better agree with it.

The time will come when Samsung dictates platforms and technologies, but for the moment it's still a contract manufacturer at heart and will make anything it's asked to make. That includes handsets based on Symbian, AmigaOS or anything else, though even Samsung would probably draw the line at OS2 Warp. ®